


Creatures That Lurk

by LouPF



Category: Kaptein Sabeltann | Captain Sabertooth - Formoe
Genre: Blood, Creature Fic, Lama Rama, Langemann POV, Living on Eggshells, M/M, Non-Human Pinky, Uncertainty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25579765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LouPF/pseuds/LouPF
Summary: Langemann has known something was wrong with Pinky since the day he found him. Disappearing into the jungle for days, bending reality, knowing things he shouldn't, and a terrifying intellect...He just wishes he knew what he was.
Relationships: Kaptein Sabeltann & Langemann, Kaptein Sabeltann/Pinky (implied), Langemann & Pinky
Kudos: 1





	Creatures That Lurk

There’s something wrong with Pinky.

Langemann has always known it. He felt it, when he first picked up that young babe, with its gorgeous eyes and calm expression. A compulsion to _do something_ , and even though it didn’t feel internal, and even though Langemann is a pirate to the core, he gave in.

It’s not that Pinky doesn’t act like a normal child. He plays with the others and learns to speak at their pace, and though he learns to walk early, that’s due to Langemann’s intense training with him.

But whenever he’s wronged by someone - and not ’you broke a rule, you’re grounded’ wrong, but actually wrong, like ’senselessly bullied’ or ’stolen from’ - the air folds around and into him and everything goes so suspiciously quiet, even if they stand in the busiest of Abra’s streets. If Pinky speaks, then, it’s dark and soft - still with his voice, but with tones he’d never use otherwise - and it’s terrifying to everyone involved.

Including Langemann.

He’s found him sleep- and restless for days on end, sitting up and reading or tinkering with something or just existing quietly. Sometimes he disappears into the jungle, and Langemann sits up every night waiting for him by a candle slowly succumbing to a flame.

More than once, he looks into that tittering flame and sees a comparison between himself and his son.

When Pinky returns, smiling and unscathed, Langemann doesn’t berate him for making him worried. He only says, "welcome back," and "how are you?" and "do you want something to eat, you must be hungry".

And Pinky always says, without fail, "thank you, I’m fine, I’ve already eaten."

_I’ve already eaten._

There’s a reason children are supposed to stay out of the jungle. They are the weakest thing in there, easy prey for whatever lurks in the dark.

"Okay," says Langemann, and tucks him in.

*

He doesn’t expect it to become a problem until Pinky takes up an intense interest with Sabeltann - more Sabeltann than pirate life, which isn’t that odd, but _still._ And here again are the waking nights, the restless sleep - Pinky muttering to himself when he thinks Langemann isn’t listening.

And slowly, in ways Langemann can’t even comprehend, Pinky begins to chip at Sabeltann’s resolves. It’s insane, and thought through, and _genius_. Sabeltann would never let a weak kid onto his ship and into his crew, and though Pinky is strong, he’s lithe and made for climbing, not fighting.

Langemann expects Pinky to show loyalty. Willingness to fight, to go headfirst into fire and water and storm.

He doesn’t. Instead he’s just _always there._ When the ship goes into harbour, when it leaves - at gatherings and celebrations and festivals - at announcements and so on. A face in the crowd.

And Langemann watches, astonished, as it _works._

It doesn’t make Sabeltann that much more positively inclined to Pinky, but - familiarity is trust, is it not?

"It’s a chemical reaction," Pinky says softly the one night Langemann feels brave enough to ask. When Pinky smiles, it doesn’t look innocent. "He can’t help it."

Langemann doesn’t ask more after that.

First then does Pinky move on to approaching Sabeltann, making sure he knows his name, what he’s willing to do for him. Not with words, naturally, Langemann’s boy is too smart for that - he walks by with his friends, and his name spills from their lips like a trusted secret.

Langemann watches as Sabeltann’s gaze follows the crowd of young teens - then how it lingers on Pinky, considerate.

Langemann swallows, licks his lips. Leans in. "We need a new cabin boy, captain."

Sabeltann nods slowly.

Pinky thanks Langemann the next day. Sabeltann has not come to any conclusions yet, and Langemann has not said what he did.

"You’re welcome," he says, and doesn’t ask.

*

The hunt for Lama Rama’s treasure is the first expedition Pinky joins. Not voluntarily, really, but when a furious Sabeltann and crew catch up with the Grim Lady and find the whole of Bjørn Bark’s people tied and gagged - and Pinky, leaning against a mast and grinning like a demon, twirling a knife around his fingers - Sabeltann doesn’t turn around to throw him off.

Nobody asks how Pinky did it. None of Bjørn’s crew say a word about it.

Langemann isn’t sure he wants to know.

The same night, while Sabeltann and Langemann are discussing plans, there’s a knock on the door.

"Enter," Sabeltann calls, straightening.

Pinky steps into the room. Langemann can’t help but think the way the shadows fall across him, obscuring his face, is intentional. "Captain," he says, "dad. I wanted to inform you that Bjørn and his crew has read the map."

Sabeltann doesn’t move, which is probably more dangerous than if he had. "What?" he says, dark and furious. "You told them?"

Raising his chin, Pinky shifts his weight - _intentionally_ , Langemann’s mind whispers, when the shadows fall and drape around him to reveal his face, steel and stone. "I would never betray my captain," he says quietly. "Some pirates _can_ read."

Langemann thinks of how he only learned how to read after Pinky was brought into his life, and how all his friends became literate in turn, and how Pinky never had to be taught, but just _knew it_.

He keeps his mouth shut.

*

In Lama Rama, Pinky evades the guards with ease, slipping out from the window and scaling the wall like a monkey. "We can tie together the sheets, and - " Rosa says, but Pinky’s already out and gone.

"Don’t bother," Langemann says, tired. "He has monkey blood in him, that runt. He’ll climb anything climbable."

Rosa leans out of the window, and Langemann knows what she can see: Pinky, digging his fingers into bare brick, scampering downwards like a critter, head-first. He also knows what she cannot see: eyes shining and teeth gleaming in something resembling a smile.

"And unclimbable," he adds, before Rosa can ask.

*

Sabeltann kicks down the door not fifteen minutes later, Pinky following right in his footsteps and the crew after them.

Langemann doesn’t ask what took them so long. Pinky is grinning. He genuinely doesn’t want to know.

He gets to know anyway, when Sabeltann mutters in his ear, "you better keep that shrimp of yours on our side." When Langemann gives him a confused look, Sabeltann says, "there was a guard."

Langemann swallows. "And I - I assume there isn’t one anymore?"

Sabeltann’s smile is slow and dangerous, and in a fit of madness, Langemann muses that he and Pinky would fit well together. "Even his mother would not recognize him."

There hadn’t been a droplet of blood on Pinky’s clothes, nor on his skin.

Langemann nods.

He knows his child.

*

When the Lama Rama guards corner them, Badal steps forward, and there’s something _familiar_ to the way he moves - like an echo of something he used to know, or a shadow of a beloved cutlass.

"So," says Badal, "this is what the King of the Seas look like."

He looks at Pinky as he says it, and Langemann’s stomach drops into the core of the earth.

Pinky looks right back and says, "You’re brave to show your face here, Badal," and every head whips around to look at him. Pinky tilts his head and smiles, sluggishly, like he has a thousand better things to do. "Or maybe you’re just stupid."

Langemann steps back when Pinky steps forward, and when Sabeltann opens his mouth, Langemann grabs his hand and tugs on it, _hard_. When Sabeltann glares at him, Langemann shakes his head once.

It’s a promise and a warning all at once, and Sabeltann glares harder, but backs down.

Badal steps forward, too, and now they circle each other - animals locked in a cage of their own creation, limbs trembling, air crackling.

"If you will be so kind as to remember where you _are_ , little hatchling mine," Badal says, and it sounds like a snake has learned to speak English with how twisted, _quiet_ the words are, "you will realize you are embarking on _my_ territory."

The air _crackles_. "Do not call me that," Pinky warns. "I can crush everything you know in a second. Besides - I only protect what is mine."

"Humans?" Badal asks, snorting. "You protect _humans_ , that is your hoard?"

 _Hoard_ , he says, and Langemann turns to Pinky, gaze raking over his body. A dragon? Is that what Pinky could be - after all these years?

"I’m not like _you_ ," Pinky snarls, and no, not a dragon, then. "I protect what’s _mine._ There is a difference."

Badal sighs theatrically. "Whatever. Get out of here before I kill your precious ma- " He chokes off, eyes growing wide as he collapses onto his knees. His fingers scrabble like claws against the floor.

Pinky steps around the King’s Pearl, leans over him, and Langemann is holding his breath just as Badal cannot draw his. "I could say the same to you," Pinky whispers, and their torches flare, flicker, and dance.

A phoenix?

But, no. They are not cruel.

"Just," Badal gasps out, _chokes_ out, around Pinky’s iron hold - even when Pinky has not laid a finger on him in his whole life. "Just - _go -_ "

Pinky releases him, steps back. The room seems to expand, the shadows brightening - as though everyone had held their collective breath there’s the hush of twenty exhales.

Nothing has changed.

Pinky backs off into the ranks of the crew, and they close around him, perplexed and terrified and loyal. Langemann feels his heat behind him, so much warmer now than usual, and he reaches behind himself, blindly.

When Pinky puts his hand in his and squeezes, Langemann blinks away tears at the scorching heat.

*

"So," says Sabeltann that night, when they’ve heaved the King’s Pearl onto deck and Langemann has been summoned into his cabin. They’re drinking the strongest whiskey they have aboard, and Sabeltann looks as though he hasn’t slept in weeks. "Care to tell me what that was about?"

Langemann doesn’t have to ask.

"I don’t know, captain."

Sabeltann takes a long sip of his whiskey. "He played me like a fiddle, didn’t he?"

Lips twitching, Langemann raises his own cup. "Sure did, captain."

Sighing, Sabeltann puts down his cup. He runs his hands through his hair, pulling it away from his face. There’s a dark, purple-bruised mark peeking out over the edge of his collar.

 _Intentionally_? Langemann’s mind whispers. But when Sabeltann drops his hair again and rubs at his temples, not gauging Langemann for a reaction, Langemann realizes, _no._

Something tells him he knows who made the mark.

"Do I even want to know?" Sabeltann asks, and it sounds like a genuine question. "You seemed so - so scared."

Langemann shakes his head. "I’ve stopped asking questions."

"You only do that when you’re scared of the answer," Sabeltann points out.

Langemann gives him a heavy look.

"Jesus," says Sabeltann, and downs the rest of his whiskey.

"Probably not," says Langemann. "Jesus was kind."

Sabeltann chokes on his whiskey.


End file.
